UC Irvine obstetrics and gynecology professor Dr. Ricardo Asch, known for his pioneering work on in-vitro fertilization, has been named to oversee recruitment of minority students to the university's California College of Medicine. Asch, who is also director of the Center for Reproductive Health in Garden Grove, will supervise fund-raising efforts for scholarships and other programs, a university spokeswoman said.

William Kennedy Smith received his medical school diploma Saturday at graduation ceremonies in the hall named for his late uncle, President John F. Kennedy. Smith walked across the stage at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall amid sustained applause and cheering from the audience and other graduates of the Georgetown University School of Medicine. Smith, 30, has been the focus of nationwide attention since a woman accused him of raping her at the Kennedy family estate in Palm Beach, Fla.

A panel of outside experts on Friday recommended that UC Irvine's scandal-scarred medical school unite its teaching and hospital campuses and persuade faculty to take administrative duties more seriously. The panel released a report with a series of recommendations for tightening oversight, including many that the university's College of Medicine has heard before.

The University of California regents Thursday approved the creation of a medical school at UC Riverside if enough money can be found. Plans call for the school to enroll its first 50 students four years from now and to eventually enroll 400 medical students and 320 residents and graduate students. Before it can open, however, the UC Riverside medical school would need to raise $50 million in private and public money by 2012; it would need $50 million more by 2020, officials said.

New enrollment at U.S. medical schools declined this fall for the fourth straight year, the Assn. of American Medical Colleges said Tuesday. The nation's 127 medical schools accepted 16,268 first-time students this fall, a decline of 113 from 1984 and a drop of 362 from the record 1981 level. Applicants totaled 32,893, down 3,051 from last year.

James Post makes his hospital rounds in a wheelchair with an assistant to hold his stethoscope to the chests of his patients. Some patients are surprised to see a 26-year-old quadriplegic as their doctor-in-training, and several medical schools rejected him. Despite all that, he graduates today from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

UnitedHealth Group Inc., the nation's second-largest health insurer, joined efforts to head off an expected shortage of doctors with a $10-million donation to two proposed medical schools in California. The gift, expected to be announced today, fulfills part of a pledge that the Minnetonka, Minn.-based company made last year to state regulators. In seeking approval for its acquisition of Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., UnitedHealth agreed to contribute $50 million to charity.

This semester, for the first time in recent memory, USC dental students have been sharing skulls. Instead of taking the craniums home, the future dentists have been doing their drills in the laboratory. It's all part of a skeleton shortage, verified by spokesmen for local medical and dental schools. In August of 1985 India, the world's only exporter of human skeletons, banned the trade.

In an effort to produce doctors who relate better to patients, the Assn. of American Medical Colleges announced an overhaul of its medical school admission test to emphasize communication skills and a well-rounded education. The Medical College Admission Test, a standardized exam required by nearly all U.S. medical schools, will be the first professional school admission test to use essays to evaluate applicants' writing ability, said Dr. Robert Petersdorf, president of AAMC.

The University of California ought to be in the nation's vanguard in drawing capable women to its faculty, paying them adequately and promoting them to top positions. But a new study of the faculty at the UC Irvine medical school offers a glaring example of how a great public university can fall short of its promise. The evidence comes from a task force study of the school that depicts an institution bogged down in the deplorable typecasting of gender that is widespread in society.